1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an IC card including a semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) and a method of manufacturing the same and, more particularly, to the structure of an IC card having on its surface a terminal for externally connecting an IC and a method of fixing an IC module.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently there have been demands for increasing an amount of information to be written to a magnetic stripe card in accordance with various uses for the card. To dishonestly use or rewrite the written information has become social problems accordingly.
In view of the above problems, an IC card incorporating an IC has been widely used in place of the magnetic stripe card.
Conventionally, there are an IC card having a fitting structure of fitting an IC module into a hole of a card-like substrate made of synthetic resin and an IC card having a laminated structure of laminating an inner sheet, an over sheet and the like and burying an IC module into a hole of these laminated sheets.
The IC module has various structures: a structure wherein an LSI bare chip, bonded to leads on a resin tape, is sealed, a chip on board (COB) structure wherein an LSI bare chip is formed on a circuit board by die bonding to connect pads of the bare chip and wires on the circuit board by gold wire bonding, a flip chip structure wherein an LSI bare chip is formed on a circuit board by die bonding to connect pads of the bare chip and those on the circuit board through bump electrodes, etc. Various types of single-sided resin sealed IC module capable of easily thinning and miniaturizing an IC card are also proposed.
An IC card such as an X-6303 IC card of JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) and a 7813 IC card of ISO (International Standard Organization), can be achieved by fitting an IC module, which has a circuit board from the back side of which an external connecting terminal is projected, into a hole of a card-like substrate. More specifically, the IC module is fitted into the hole by an adhesive such that an IC chip mounting section is located inside the IC card.
The above-described IC card has a drawback wherein the card is damaged by stress concentrated upon an end corner portion of the IC chip mounting section when the card is bent and deformed.
Further, there is a drawback of low mass production in a conventional method of manufacturing an IC card wherein a liquid adhesive is applied onto the inner surface of a hole of a card-like substrate, and an IC module is fitted into the hole and pressed on the inner surface thereof such that an IC chip mounting section of the IC module is located inside the card.